Drug-resistant malaria detected at Myanmar-India border

Scientists have detected drug-resistant malaria at the Myanmar-India border. It was revealed in a Oxford University led study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

Tests have shown that this drug-resistant malaria is on the verge of entering India and now poses an enormous threat to global health.

These detected drug-resistant malaria parasite have ability to shrug off the effects of artemisinin (normally given as part of combination therapy to fight malaria) has been spreading since it emerged in South-east Asia.

Drug-resistant malaria has been detected in South Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.

In case Myanmar, 940 parasite samples were collected at 55 malaria treatment centres and its border regions. Scientist have found that almost 40 percent of the samples had mutations in their so-called kelch gene, K13 a known genetic signal of artemisinin drug resistance.

Earlier, drug-resistant malaria parasite to Chloroquine was discovered in 1957 around the border between Cambodia and Thailand.

Deaths from malaria have nearly halved since 2000, and the infection now kills about 584,000 people each year. But drug-resistant malaria parasite may threat to global health in future.